Financialization and sustainable credit: lessons from non-intermediated transactions?

Svetiev, Y.; Dermineur, E.; Kolanisi, Unathi

Financialization and sustainable credit: lessons from non-intermediated transactions?

dc.contributor.author	Svetiev, Y.
dc.contributor.author	Dermineur, E.
dc.contributor.author	Kolanisi, Unathi
dc.coverage.conference	issn
dc.date.accessioned	2026-02-05T08:59:48Z
dc.date.available	2026-02-05T08:59:48Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.departmentName	Consumer Sciences
dc.description.abstract	Does increasing access to finance promote human flourishing? And if so, are there pathways to sustainable credit and finance in the face of the perceived excesses of financialization? Can we reform or regulate the financial sector to promote sustainable credit and avoid over-indebtedness? These and similar questions have attracted considerable scholarly and public debate in the aftermath of the 2007 global financial crisis, with a growing focus on institutional alternatives to market exchange in finance and beyond. In this article, we study the persistence of non-intermediated credit, whereby lenders and borrowers engage in transactions directly and without financial intermediaries. Peer lending was a mainstay source of credit prior to the emergence of financial intermediaries and our benchmark case study outlines common features of credit relationships before modern banking in Europe. The other two case studies come from jurisdictions where non-intermediated credit persists on a broad scale, despite parties having formal access to modern finance. The aim of our contribution is threefold. First, we identify features of non-intermediated transactions that are consistent with a notion of sustainable credit, in the sense that they are not destabilising for the transacting parties (or the broader community). Secondly, we highlight the normative mechanisms that support non-intermediated credit across different settings to identify the scope conditions and limits for such transactions. Third, we evaluate such credit transactions along a set of normative benchmarks to draw out lessons for contemporary finance and financial regulation. We argue that even if non-intermediated credit cannot provide an alternative to modern finance, such transactions can help financial institutions tailor products to the needs of specific consumers or outsource credit assessment and repayment, while also allowing policymakers and regulators to identify and resolve concrete credit access problems for disadvantaged communities.
dc.faculty	Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering
dc.identifier.citation	Svetiev, Y., Dermineur, E. and Kolanisi, U., 2022. Financialization and sustainable credit: lessons from non-intermediated transactions?. Journal of Consumer Policy, 45(4), pp.673-698.
dc.identifier.issn	1573-0700 (online)
dc.identifier.issn	0168-7034 (print)
dc.identifier.other	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-022-09529-0
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10530/58630
dc.inproceedings	issn
dc.issuenumber	45
dc.keynote	issn
dc.language.iso	en
dc.pages	673 - 698
dc.peerreviewed	Yes
dc.publisher	Springer Nature
dc.subject	Consumer credit
dc.subject	Peer-to-peer credit
dc.subject	Over-indebtedness
dc.subject	Transactional trust
dc.subject	Social norms
dc.title	Financialization and sustainable credit: lessons from non-intermediated transactions?
dc.title.journal	Journal of Consumer Policy
dc.type	Journal Article
dspace.entity.type	Publication
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